Parents, Parking Enforcement Team, and Police All Deployed... "No Safety Issues in Front of School"

On the Way to School in Downtown Seoul...
Seoul City Installs No Illegal Parking Lines in School Zones
Traffic Signs Replaced with LEDs ... Citizens Can Report Directly via App

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] "Vehicle 65**, please move your car. This is a school zone where students pass by."

On the 5th, in front of a shopping complex near Apgujeong Elementary School in Gangnam-gu. When the joint special crackdown team from Seoul City and Gangnam District Office appeared, a driver who had visited an interior design company on the first floor hurriedly came out and started the engine of the vehicle straddling the sidewalk and the road. Across the street, a silver private car illegally parked without contact information was issued an 80,000 KRW fine notice. If the vehicle is not moved, it will be towed in an hour or two.

As the school start time approached, students holding their mothers' and fathers' hands walked in a line on the sidewalk equipped with safety fences. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only half of the entire student body attends school divided by grade and group, but the sidewalk, barely wide enough for two people to pass, quickly became crowded. About ten parents volunteering for traffic safety and police officers from the nearby security center were stationed at each crosswalk to guide the students on their way to school.

This school is surrounded by old apartment complexes built in the 1970s and 1980s. Without an underground parking lot, residents' vehicles fill the nearby side streets in the evening, and the road conditions are poor enough that one of two oncoming vehicles must pull over to let the other pass.

On the first day of school, Kim (male, 43), a parent of a 4th-grade boy who came to bring many supplies, said, "The apartment complex parking lots are severely insufficient, so residents have no choice but to park on the roadside." He added, "There was no clear distinction between the road and the pedestrian path, but after moving the school fence inward a few months ago, slightly reducing the playground and securing a new sidewalk, I feel somewhat reassured." Jung (female, 38), a parent of a 1st grader who watched from afar as her child checked their temperature inside the school gate, said, "I educate my child never to go out alone on the road, but I still feel uneasy and plan to accompany them to school until the lower grades."

The Seoul City crackdown team monitored 11 cases of illegal parking for about an hour that morning and issued guidance for 16 cases where drivers immediately moved their vehicles.

On the 5th, a joint special crackdown team from Seoul City and Gangnam District Office is cracking down on illegally parked vehicles in the school zone in front of Apgujeong Elementary School in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

Seoul City is promoting high-intensity safety measures to eradicate speeding and illegal parking with the goal of creating 'safe school routes.' Starting this year, any form of parking or stopping is prohibited on main school routes where elementary schools or kindergartens have their main gates. This is to ensure drivers have sufficient visibility on the road and that parked vehicles do not block the view of small children.

Due to parking difficulties in residential areas, 48 'resident-priority parking zones' that had been in operation will be completely removed by the end of this year?90% by the end of this month and 100% by year-end?and replaced with 'yellow double lines,' which are absolute no-parking zones.

Citizens can also report illegal parking directly through the smartphone application 'Seoul Smart Inconvenience Reporting App.' CCTV and other unmanned monitoring devices operating 24/7 will be installed in areas where parking spaces are removed to prevent recurrence.

In particular, following the amendment of the Road Traffic Act (known as the 'Min-sik Law'), which mandates the installation of speed cameras, Seoul City will invest 14 billion KRW to install 340 additional speed cameras this year. By the end of the year, speed cameras will be operational in 420 out of 606 elementary schools (69.3%) within children's protection zones in Seoul, with plans to achieve 100% installation by the first half of next year.

Additionally, to ensure drivers clearly recognize children's protection zones, 86 'Sign Block Yellow Carpets' will be installed at school route crosswalks, and 414 traffic signs at entrances and exits of these zones will be replaced with full LED signs.

According to Seoul City and the National Police Agency, there are currently 1,760 children's protection zones in Seoul. Last year alone, 114 traffic accidents occurred in these zones, including two fatal accidents. Hwang Bo-yeon, Director of Urban Transportation at Seoul City, stated, "We will prioritize children's safety and respond with zero tolerance to illegal parking. By the first half of next year, we will install enforcement cameras at all elementary schools in Seoul to prevent any more tragic injuries or deaths of children in school zones."

Since young students have a high risk of accidents due to sudden behavior despite traffic safety education and warnings, efforts will be made to raise drivers' awareness and strengthen multiple layers of safety measures through parents and local police guidance. Cheon Kyung-sook, President of the Green Mothers' Association, said, "Viewing children as vulnerable road users and creating safe routes to and from school is the first step in shifting our driver-centered traffic culture to a pedestrian-centered one. Rather than preparing measures after accidents occur, we must implement safety measures that may seem somewhat excessive before accidents happen."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.